The Bodyguard's Return (4 page)

Joshua had yet to make up his mind about Savannah. He wasn’t sure if she was a drama queen looking for excitement or was really onto something.

She’d surprised him with her statistical analysis and the sharp intelligence that gleamed from her amber-colored eyes.

The one thing he did know was that something
about Savannah Clarion made him a little bit jumpy, made his thoughts race in directions they shouldn’t be going.

As she’d talked to him, he’d found himself wondering if her red curls were soft and silky or wiry and coarse. He’d wondered if her full mouth would be soft and yielding beneath his or fierce and demanding?

Those kinds of thoughts irritated him. Hadn’t he learned his lesson in New York? He focused his attention on the next piece of paper she shoved over in front of him.

“I made a list of all the people who have died. As you can see, all of them are men,” she said.

He read the list of names, then looked back at her. “Look, this is all very interesting, but I don’t see any big conspiracy here.”

She frowned, her lower lip jutting out slightly in what appeared to be a small pout. “I’m not finished with all the investigating I intend to do,” she said. “Help me, Joshua. Please help me find out exactly what happened to all these men. With two of us working together it will take half the time to get some answers.”

He leaned back in his chair and swiped a hand through his hair. “I’m not sure what the questions are that need to be asked.”

“We need to look at each individual incident and see if there are any anomalies, anything that doesn’t fit with it being an accident. Like I said before, Gray Sampson’s death would have been ruled an accident.
It wasn’t until your brother picked up the rock where Gray had supposedly fallen off his horse and hit his head and saw blood on both sides that they realized the rock had been used to bludgeon him to death.”

She paused to draw a deep breath and he tried not to notice the rise and fall of her breasts beneath the light lavender sweater she wore.

“As far as I’m concerned, Charlie buying ice cream an hour before he supposedly committed suicide is a huge red flag,” she continued. “Joshua, you were his friend. You should know Charlie didn’t have a suicidal bone in his body. Don’t you want to know the truth? Isn’t Charlie worth a little of your time?”

Joshua sighed. He had to admit that the fact that Charlie bought groceries then went home and blew his brains out, didn’t make sense. Charlie’s wife Rebecca had been gone a long time and Charlie seemed to have made peace with the fact that he would live out the rest of his years alone.

Surely if a man was going to commit suicide to be with his departed wife, he wouldn’t wait eight long years. Charlie’s suicide just didn’t make sense, although any other scenario didn’t make sense either.

What else do you have to do with your time,
a little voice whispered inside his head? He didn’t want to work the family business and he wasn’t interested in continuing as a stockbroker, but had no idea what he really wanted to do. He had nothing but time on his hands at the moment.

“All right,” he relented after a moment’s hesita
tion. “I’ll do some checking into these deaths. I’ll get the accident reports and look them over.”

“Thank you.” She smiled and he felt a jolt of heat sweep through him. She had one hell of a smile. She grabbed a sheet of paper and scribbled something then handed it to him. “That’s my phone number at Winnie’s and my cell phone number.”

He took them reluctantly, having no intention of calling her except to tell her he’d done as she’d requested. Something about her unsettled him and the less interaction she had with him the better he’d feel. “It should just take me a day or two.” He stood, eager to be away from her with her sexy scent and heart-stopping smile.

She handed him the papers she’d printed off and he folded them and stuck them in his back pocket. “Why did you decide to come back to Cotter Creek?” she asked, also rising. “Meredith told me you’d been doing quite well in New York.”

I ran back home like a dog with my tail tucked between my legs. I screwed up with a relationship that turned more than ugly.
The thoughts flew through his head, bringing with him the sense of failure that had ridden his shoulders since he’d made the decision to return home.

“I missed my family. When you’re used to being surrounded by people who care about you, a place like New York City can be pretty lonely.”

She eyed him wryly. “I doubt if a man like you had too many lonely nights.”

“There’s a difference between being alone and being lonely.” He gestured toward the door, uncomfortable with the personal turn of the conversation.

“Must be nice to have a loving family,” she said as she gathered her papers, then joined him at the front door.

“You aren’t close with your family?” he asked. She stood close enough to him that he could again smell her scent, a heady fragrance that put all his nerves on alert.

“It’s just me and my parents,” she replied. “I don’t think my mother ever recovered from the shock of not birthing a perfect blond, beautiful miniature of herself, and my father was mostly absent while I was growing up. He had to work long hours to keep my mother in baubles and bling.”

She turned out the light, locked the door and they stepped out of the building. Night had completely fallen, but the illumination from a full moon cascaded down, painting her features in a soft, becoming light.

“I can’t thank you enough for meeting me here tonight and listening to me.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” he warned. “You haven’t convinced me that there’s anything ominous going on.”

She nodded, her curls dancing with the gesture. “How are Jessie and Judd?”

Joshua thought of the two dogs he’d brought home from Charlie’s place. “Initially they were confused and seemed depressed, but they’re begin
ning to settle in just fine. Smokey wasn’t thrilled that I’d brought them home.”

She laughed, a low throaty sound. “Is that man ever happy about anything?”

He grinned. “Smokey’s bark is definitely louder than his bite. After my mother’s death I’m not sure my father could have coped with six small children without Smokey’s help.”

“How did that happen? I mean, where did he come from?”

“Smokey worked as a foreman on the ranch until a terrible fall from a horse crushed his leg and left him with permanent damage. He’d just about healed from his wounds when my mother was murdered. Smokey stepped into the house as if he were born to the job.”

“I’d love to interview him for my column. Actually, I’d love to interview you, you know, something about the return of the prodigal son.”

“No way, I’m not interested in being interviewed. And good luck with Smokey,” he added drily. At that moment a loud bang resounded and almost simultaneously the picture window just to the right of them exploded.

Without thought, acting only on instinct, Joshua dove toward Savannah and tackled her to the ground.

S
avannah hit the pavement hard, the back of her head connecting with the concrete with a dull whack that momentarily created whirling stars in her brain. Joshua’s body covered hers as shards of glass rained down around them.

For a moment she was frozen, unable to think. The back of her head throbbed from the blow. She opened her eyes and winced. “What happened?” she asked as the initial shock began to wear off.

“Shh.” He shushed her sharply. She could swear she felt his heart pounding against her chest, but then wasn’t sure if it was his or her own beating so frantically.

In the moonlight she could see his features, taut
and dangerous-looking as he gazed at the darkness across the street.

What was he looking for? What had just happened? A dog barked in the distance, the only sound in the otherwise silent night. “What’s going on? Do you see anything?” she whispered.

“Where are your keys to the office?” His voice was like hers, just a whisper.

She dug her hand into her pocket and withdrew the keys. He took them from her. For the first time since they’d fallen to the pavement, he looked down at her. “I’m going to open the office door and when I do, I want you to crawl inside. Whatever you do, don’t stand up.”

His eyes gleamed more silver than green in the moonlight. Dangerous. He looked so dangerous it frightened her. “What happened, Joshua?” she asked again, her fear evident in her voice. “What’s going on?”

“Somebody just took a shot at us.” His eyes narrowed as he once again looked across the street. “And I don’t know if the shooter is still there waiting for us to make a move or not.”

A shot? Somebody had shot at them? Fear swelled inside her. Her head throbbed with nauseating intensity. “I told you something was rotten in this town.” Her voice rose in volume. Surely this was proof. “I must be onto something and now somebody is trying to shut me up.”

“How about you shut up right now until we get inside and can call the sheriff.”

She would have been offended by his words if she hadn’t been so busy trying to process the fact that apparently somebody had just tried to kill them.

As he started to get off her, she had the crazy need to wrap her arms around his neck and keep him in place so close to her.

Don’t go,
she wanted to say. But, she didn’t. She held her breath as he slowly eased up into a crouch and quickly made his way to the office door.

She tensed, waiting for another gun report, praying another bullet didn’t come careening out of the night toward him. She released a sigh of relief as he reached the door, unlocked it and shoved it open.

“Keep low,” he said.

Keep low? She’d crawl on her belly like a worm if it kept her alive. And that’s exactly what she did. As she moved, she was aware of the grit of the sidewalk beneath her, the shards of glass that littered the way.

Tension made her feel like throwing up. Somebody had shot at her. Somebody had pointed a gun and pulled the trigger. Her head pounded with the horrifying knowledge. Apparently somebody wanted her dead.

She made it to the doorway and slid inside. Joshua sat on the floor next to Raymond Buchannan’s desk, the phone to his ear. As she crawled up next to him
he hung up. “The sheriff is on his way. Are you okay?”

“My head hurts and my clothes are ruined, but other than being positively terrified, I think I’m fine.” But, she wasn’t fine. A trembling shuddered through her as she thought of the window exploding and the bullet that had caused it.

He nodded, then rising to a crouch once again he moved away from the desk and to the edge of the broken window where he peered outside. “I don’t think our shooter is out there now.”

“How do you know that?” Even though she wasn’t at all sure she liked Joshua West that much, what she wanted to do more than anything at the moment was curl up in his arms. There was no doubt in her mind that the bullet had been meant for her.

He turned from the window and glanced back at her, his eyes glittering darkly. “If the shooter was still out there, there’s no way we would have been able to make it back inside to call the sheriff. He would have fired again to try to prevent us getting help.”

“What more proof do you need that something is going on? Somebody just tried to kill me and it can only be because I’m digging into things somebody doesn’t want uncovered.”

“Don’t jump to conclusions,” he replied tersely. “And when the sheriff gets here let me do the talking. If you come off like a half-hysterical female, he won’t listen to either one of us.”

“I’ve never been a hysterical female in my life,” she replied with more than a touch of irritation. Now that some of the fear was passing she found herself aggravated by his words. “Part of the problem in this town is that the men don’t listen to the women.”

Both Meredith and Winnie had extolled Joshua’s charm, but so far Savannah had seen little evidence that the man possessed any at all.

As the sound of a siren filled the night, Joshua rose to his feet, apparently convinced that whoever had shot at them was gone.

He flipped on the light and gazed around the room. Savannah remained seated on the floor. She wasn’t going to stand up until Sheriff Ramsey walked into the building.

“Whoever made that shot didn’t intend to kill with it,” Joshua said.

She frowned. “And how do you know that?”

“Too much damage for it to have been a single bullet. It looks like it might have been birdshot, a fairly ineffective way to try to kill somebody. It can sting like hell, but usually isn’t deadly, especially at this distance.”

“Then maybe it was done to scare me,” she said thoughtfully. “And if that was the objective, then it succeeded.” She brushed off tiny pieces of glass clinging to her jeans and tried to ignore the headache that was banging at the back of her head.

The siren came closer. “This might have nothing to do with you or what you’re investigating.”

“Okay, then who have you pissed off since you’ve been back in town?” she retorted.

He didn’t reply and at that moment headlights flashed through the doorway, signaling that the sheriff had arrived.

Joshua rode his horse hard, enjoying the whip of early morning wind and the sunshine that spread warmth across his back and shoulders.

Riding was one of the things he’d missed while in New York City and each morning since being back he’d started his day with a ride.

This morning, however, his mind wasn’t on the joy of the massive horse beneath him or the beauty of the morning but rather on the events of the night before.

He and Ramsey had sent Savannah home, then the two men had canvassed the area, looking for clues as to where the shooter might have been standing when the trigger had been pulled.

As he’d expected, they’d found nothing. The sheriff had thought it was possible that a couple of teenage boys were responsible. He’d told Joshua that last month two of them had gotten drunk on their daddy’s beer and had shot out the windows of the café in the middle of the night with a load of birdshot.

“Damn fool kids got nothing to do in this town but cause mischief,” he’d said. Still, he’d promised a full investigation.

Ramsey had called Raymond Buchannan, and
when the old man had arrived they’d all worked to cover the broken window with plywood.

Ramsey might think the culprits were a couple of kids, but Savannah had been convinced that the shooting was meant to scare her off her current path. She’d reiterated before she’d left to go home that somebody better wake up and smell the coffee before more people died.

Joshua wasn’t convinced that the shooter had meant to harm or scare her. He wasn’t convinced the shooting was about her at all. He thought it might have been about him and that worried him.

He pulled up on the reins as he approached the stables and saw with surprise that his brother Clay was standing next to the corral gate, obviously waiting for him.

Clay opened the gate and Joshua rode through the wooden fence and directly into the stable. He dismounted, then motioned to Bobby Walker, one of the stable boys. “Bobby, you want to unsaddle and brush her down for me?”

“Sure, boss.” The young man hurried over to take the reins from Joshua.

Joshua swept his hat off his head and walked out to meet his brother. “Hey bro, what are you doing here instead of having breakfast with that gorgeous fiancée of yours?”

“Just figured it was time to check in with my baby brother. I’ve hardly seen you since you’ve been back,” Clay replied.

The two fell into step side-by-side as they headed for the house. “How’s the wedding plans coming?” Joshua asked.

Clay winced. “For some reason I had the stupid idea that all I needed to do was hire a preacher, find a place and say I do and it would be a done deal. But women seem to have their own ideas about what should be involved when it comes to weddings.”

Joshua laughed. “Libby is great, Clay. I’m happy for you.” He’d met his brother’s fiancée a couple of nights before, along with her daughter, Gracie. “You’re going to have your hands full with that little girl. Gracie is a smart cookie and as charming as can be.”

Clay smiled, his affection for the child obvious. “Yeah, she’s something else. She had Smokey curled around her finger in a matter of minutes, and Dad is an absolute fool over her.”

For just a moment a sharp envy shot through Joshua. He’d seen the way both eight-year-old Gracie and the beautiful Libby looked at his brother. They looked at him as if he’d hung the moon and Joshua had no doubt that the life his brother was going to share with them would be filled with plenty of love.

The last thing Joshua had been looking for in his time in New York was marriage or even a committed relationship. But since returning home and seeing his brothers with their spouses and intended spouses, he’d found himself wondering what it would be like to have a special lady in his life.

As they reached the house, Clay motioned Joshua into one of the two chairs that sat on the porch. “Let’s sit and talk a bit before we go inside.”

“Okay.” Joshua eased down into one of the chairs as Clay sat in the other.

“It’s good to have you home, Joshua. We all missed you,” Clay said. “It didn’t seem right whenever the family got together and you weren’t there.”

“Yeah, it’s good to be back.”

Clay stared off in the distance, a thoughtful frown wrinkling his forehead. “Actually, Dad wanted me to talk to you. He’s been worried about you since you’ve been home.”

Joshua looked at Clay in surprise. “Worried? Why?”

His brother looked at him. “He says you haven’t been yourself since returning to Cotter Creek. You’re quieter, more withdrawn, and he doesn’t understand why you seem so adamant against working for the business.”

Joshua leaned back in the chair. “I’m not totally against it, I just told him I need some time to decide exactly what I want to do.”

He knew his brothers loved working for the bodyguard business and he didn’t know how to explain to anyone that, for him, going back to work for that business felt like a failure.

No matter how inept, no matter how unskilled he might be, that was a job waiting for him simply by the mere accident of being born a West.

“Is there anything else going on? Anything bothering you?” Clay asked.

If Joshua was going to bare his heart to anyone in his family, it would be to Clay. The two brothers had always been close.

But the West men had never been big on soul-baring, and to be honest, Joshua was more than a little embarrassed by what had happened in New York to drive him back home. He wasn’t ready to talk about it with anyone.

“I had a little excitement last night,” he finally said. He explained to Clay about Savannah enlisting his aid in her quest for answers, then described the shooting that had taken place at the newspaper office.

“It was nothing but birdshot,” Joshua explained.

“You think she’s onto something?” Clay asked when Joshua had finished.

“I don’t know,” Joshua admitted thoughtfully. “It’s possible what happened last night was nothing more than some kids looking for a little excitement.” He released a deep sigh. “All I know for sure is that I had the feeling if I didn’t agree to help her she was going to be a major pain in my ass. Have you met her?”

Clay smiled. “Yeah, Meredith introduced us to her. She seems really nice. Meredith certainly thinks the world of her.”

Joshua scowled and leaned forward. “I have a feeling the woman can be stubborn as a mule, and she could definitely talk a man to death.”

“Are you going to help her?”

“I told her I’d talk to Ramsey, get a copy of the reports of each incident and take a look at them for any red flags.”

“You might want to talk to Zack. When Kate’s father was murdered he did some investigating into some of the other deaths.”

“Did he come to any conclusions?” Joshua asked.

“Apparently not.”

“He told me he’s thinking of running for sheriff in November.”

Clay nodded. “Ramsey has said he intends to retire.”

“According to Savannah he retired a long time ago and just didn’t tell anyone.”

Clay laughed, then sobered as he eyed his brother for a long moment. “You sure everything is all right?”

Joshua forced a grin to his lips. “You can officially report back to Dad that I’m fine. Just taking a little down time before deciding what I want to do.”

Clay rose from the chair. “Don’t forget you have a tuxedo fitting this afternoon. I can’t have my best man looking anything but his best.”

“Don’t worry, I promise I won’t embarrass you by turning up next weekend in anything but a well-fit tux.”

Clay started for the front door. “You coming in?”

“No, I think I’ll sit out here for a while.”

Clay gave him a long, measured look, then went into the house, leaving Joshua alone with his thoughts.

Joshua leaned back and stared out at the pasture in the distance. He’d missed this view. It hadn’t taken him long in New York City to recognize that he was a country kind of man at heart.

For a while the city had been exciting. The nightlife, the fast pace, so alien from what he’d known, had invigorated him. But, after the initial novelty had worn off, he’d missed home.